I will be out of school for Chuseok, like I mentioned earlier, this coming Wednesday through Monday. I will be going to the islands of Jeju for 2 days, and Busan for 2 days. My old roommate Neil, from the EPIK Jeonju orientation, lives in Jeonju - so I am pretty excited for him to show me the ropes. Busan comes highly recommended from just about every Korean. Jeju is supposed to be beautiful too!
I will be taking a ferry to Jeju, a trip lasting a little over 13 hours. I hope I don't get seasick!! The plan is to sleep for as much of it as I possibly can. The trips to Busan from Jeju, and back home to Incheon from Busan, will both be by plane. The rates are amazing here in Korea, I literally scheduled both flights in the past two days, and I am paying about 50 dollars for each flight. I definitely plan on cashing in on these cheap deals again! (Thanks, travelocity.com and Patrick, a buddy of mine from NYC, for showing it to me in relation to Korea).
The best chunk of news from today is that I will be getting my camera back right before my trip. In fact, I will be picking it up on the way to the ferry, so hopefully I will be back in the picture game with photos-a-plenty!!
I wish everyone a great start to October!!
P.S. I will let you guys know about the big Halloween party the EPIK teachers are planning as the dates get closer!!
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Quick Update
My last day of school this week is Wednesday. I will have the 1st, 2nd and 5th off of October, for Korea's Chuseok celebration. Chuseok is like the Thanksgiving of America but it is geared more towards honoring one's ancestors and probably a bigger deal here than T-Giving is in the States.
I haven't been very good the past few days about making new posts, but I will update you all my Chuseok travel plans soon. I will be heading to the Jeju islands along with Busan, so it will be a busy 5 days!!
This past weekend I was in Seoul on both Saturday and Sunday, and spent both days at the Dongdaemun Market. It is a giant shopping area where you can hit up the department stores, or go to the area where you can haggle. I opted for the .......... (sorry, I had to take a 5 minute break to go on a mosquito-killing binge) .. anyway, I opted for the clothing market where you haggle. It was a lot of fun!! I was a little worried I'd get taken but it ended up being OK, though I got much better rates on Saturday than Sunday.
Gotta go for now, class tomorrow in the early morning! I'll post soon on my upcoming travels.
I haven't been very good the past few days about making new posts, but I will update you all my Chuseok travel plans soon. I will be heading to the Jeju islands along with Busan, so it will be a busy 5 days!!
This past weekend I was in Seoul on both Saturday and Sunday, and spent both days at the Dongdaemun Market. It is a giant shopping area where you can hit up the department stores, or go to the area where you can haggle. I opted for the .......... (sorry, I had to take a 5 minute break to go on a mosquito-killing binge) .. anyway, I opted for the clothing market where you haggle. It was a lot of fun!! I was a little worried I'd get taken but it ended up being OK, though I got much better rates on Saturday than Sunday.
Gotta go for now, class tomorrow in the early morning! I'll post soon on my upcoming travels.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
They're Breakdance Fighting!!
This past Saturday afternoon I ventured out to the Incheon Arts Center, which has a really neat setup, plus a lot of cool restaurants and a virtual-reality roller coaster. In fact, I could have probably skipped the rest of my vague description and just mentioned that it had a VR roller coaster, which makes it a hands-down awesome place to be. It's dirt cheap to ride it too, but I digress..
The specific reason I was out there was to catch a 2-day break dancing competition teamed with a graffiti exhibition. They had about 8 graffiti artists who had some incredible artwork going, along with a public board where anyone could grab hold of a can and spray whatever it is they chose to spray. I threw up an EPIK tag, not wanting to get too crazy considering it was both the first time I held a can of spray paint and actually used it too. The main attraction, however, were the B-Boys (break dancers). The B-Girls actually performed earlier today, so I wasn't able to catch it. Watching them dance live was .. incredible. There really isn't anyway to say it, but they had the whole crowd hooked. My favorite part was when the music would change, which I believe happened at random, and watching the dancers adjust to the new beat or tempo. Lots of times it would happen mid-dance, and if you watched their faces you could see for a split second them adjusting their moves to suit the song. They would change so fluidly, though, that you only caught it in an instant, and it only translated in their faces; their bodies would adjust seamlessly.
I actually got some video of a few dancers, and being the adventurous soul I am wandered over to the performers' side of the stage. My friend Ryan and I started talking up this dancer from the UK, and with very little prompting whatsoever, he tried to recruit us into the world of break dancing. He introduced us to a fellow named Daniel, who gave us his card and some strong encouragement to join up. They were all really nice people, and incredibly talented too. Learning to break dance wasn't necessarily the highest priority on my to-do list coming to Korea, but I have given it a little thought and I will continue to ponder the possibility for a few days before I join a "crew." I think that a lot of the EPIK'ers were pretty excited about the prospect of learning how to break dance though, so I may come back home with a newly found set of skills. We shall see!
It very well may be one of my favorite things I have been a part of since I have been in Korea. The population it attracted was almost as fun to watch as the actual dancers and graffiti'ers, because their fashion was always top notch. The setting was perfect too, because all this new-age art and dance was taking place in the midst of a pretty classic Korean scene. The old-Korea feel of our locale tied in so well with everything. I will try and get some of those pictures and videos up and running as soon as I can.
The specific reason I was out there was to catch a 2-day break dancing competition teamed with a graffiti exhibition. They had about 8 graffiti artists who had some incredible artwork going, along with a public board where anyone could grab hold of a can and spray whatever it is they chose to spray. I threw up an EPIK tag, not wanting to get too crazy considering it was both the first time I held a can of spray paint and actually used it too. The main attraction, however, were the B-Boys (break dancers). The B-Girls actually performed earlier today, so I wasn't able to catch it. Watching them dance live was .. incredible. There really isn't anyway to say it, but they had the whole crowd hooked. My favorite part was when the music would change, which I believe happened at random, and watching the dancers adjust to the new beat or tempo. Lots of times it would happen mid-dance, and if you watched their faces you could see for a split second them adjusting their moves to suit the song. They would change so fluidly, though, that you only caught it in an instant, and it only translated in their faces; their bodies would adjust seamlessly.
I actually got some video of a few dancers, and being the adventurous soul I am wandered over to the performers' side of the stage. My friend Ryan and I started talking up this dancer from the UK, and with very little prompting whatsoever, he tried to recruit us into the world of break dancing. He introduced us to a fellow named Daniel, who gave us his card and some strong encouragement to join up. They were all really nice people, and incredibly talented too. Learning to break dance wasn't necessarily the highest priority on my to-do list coming to Korea, but I have given it a little thought and I will continue to ponder the possibility for a few days before I join a "crew." I think that a lot of the EPIK'ers were pretty excited about the prospect of learning how to break dance though, so I may come back home with a newly found set of skills. We shall see!
It very well may be one of my favorite things I have been a part of since I have been in Korea. The population it attracted was almost as fun to watch as the actual dancers and graffiti'ers, because their fashion was always top notch. The setting was perfect too, because all this new-age art and dance was taking place in the midst of a pretty classic Korean scene. The old-Korea feel of our locale tied in so well with everything. I will try and get some of those pictures and videos up and running as soon as I can.
A Cheese by Any Other Name
I take a special interest in linguistic humor. One of my favorite things about being in Korea are the products, expressions and titles that get lost in translation. For instance, just yesterday I was in a Lotte Department store, which is a biggggg shopping center (they have their own baseball team, to really give you an idea of the size), and stumbled across the exit during my search for the food court. It read, verbatim, "This exit is the doorway to life." Pretty heavy stuff.... I managed to take a photo of it on my cell phone, but I accidentally deleted it when I was trying to show it to some friends. I know that I will be back in the area, though, so the next time I am there I will try and get another photo of it - I mean, it is the doorway to life and all.
However, that was just an example of the odd things that get tossed onto products or signs. My favorite thus far came while I was grocery shopping. My list was short, but I definitely needed the essentials (bread, meat, cheese, mayo) because I am a sandwich man. I had every item on my list completed save the cheese by the time I meandered towards the wine section. There are a lot of pretty good wines here and most of it comes on the relative cheap too, but what caught my eye were the snacks that go along with the wine, namely the cheese and crackers. The cheese here is pretty expensive, it being a rarity and all, so my selections were limited to two types (keep in mind these were paired with wine!), American cheddar cheese and American white cheddar cheese. The labels read as follows:
- Well Being Cheddar Slice Cheese
and
- Orange Cheddar Slice Cheese II
Yes, there was literally the roman numeral for "2", so obviously I was curious where "1" was. Needless to say, I went with the well-being variation (the white American cheese), and it has treated me quite well so far! One of the reasons I have enjoyed my time here, among the many, is that all the drab endeavors in America have become little adventures of their own in Korea!
However, that was just an example of the odd things that get tossed onto products or signs. My favorite thus far came while I was grocery shopping. My list was short, but I definitely needed the essentials (bread, meat, cheese, mayo) because I am a sandwich man. I had every item on my list completed save the cheese by the time I meandered towards the wine section. There are a lot of pretty good wines here and most of it comes on the relative cheap too, but what caught my eye were the snacks that go along with the wine, namely the cheese and crackers. The cheese here is pretty expensive, it being a rarity and all, so my selections were limited to two types (keep in mind these were paired with wine!), American cheddar cheese and American white cheddar cheese. The labels read as follows:
- Well Being Cheddar Slice Cheese
and
- Orange Cheddar Slice Cheese II
Yes, there was literally the roman numeral for "2", so obviously I was curious where "1" was. Needless to say, I went with the well-being variation (the white American cheese), and it has treated me quite well so far! One of the reasons I have enjoyed my time here, among the many, is that all the drab endeavors in America have become little adventures of their own in Korea!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Some Pictures - All Borrowed!!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2745268&id=7935602&saved
even if you are not on fbook, you should be able to access these. Let me know if you can't.
even if you are not on fbook, you should be able to access these. Let me know if you can't.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Back in Seoul!!
I had a much better experience the second go around in Seoul! We went to the 63rd tower, which is a huge gold skyscraper. The view rivals the N. Seoul Tower, but the 63rd has an art exhibit at the top too. It was a lot of fun, and it is always amazing to see Seoul from that far up.
After that, we headed down to the Seoul City Hall area, where they had an outdoor orchestra playing Beatles songs, the 007 theme (there is a video of my pretending to be James Bond, hoping that doesn't make it to the internet), and Oye Como Va. In fact, the band came to the place we caught dinner after their show so they were pouring in towards the end of our meal. We went to a smaller club where they had a few live shows, reminiscent of Austin.
We took a cab back this time around, and believe it or not it only comes with about a 5.50 fare to get from Seoul back to Incheon, so no waiting for the first train at 5:30 AM anymore!! However, my friend Ryan wants to hit a sauna one of these nights in Seoul and take the first train back one more time, so I think I might join in on that because the saunas are supposed to be pretty cool, and cheap!
Pictures to come soon I promise!
Hey Ya'll
Sorry for the lack of photo updates.
I think I mentioned earlier that my camera broke at the end of orientation. I dropped it a grand total of a foot and that was all she wrote. In fact, and don't ask me how, ten minutes after that I managed to spill mustard on all sides (front, side and with the aid of my elbow I even got my back) of my favorite white polo - my 4th grade habits are coming back to haunt me I suppose. It's a small part of my life I wish I could take back.
Anyway, I took my camera into a Canon shop - and actually got it set up to be fixed by only knowing how to say "Dowa juseyo?" (can you help me?), "yes," and some serious acting skills where I mimed dropping my camera and it exploding. It should take about a week or so from this past Friday, and I will be uploading an album of photos I downloaded from my friends, but some originals are on the way as soon as I get my camera back, I can't wait!!
Back at school again today, which feels great, because on Thursday and Friday I actually spent the day doing voice recordings in a pretty expensive sound studio. I had official leave from school, so I got to spend those two days saying things like "Is this your cap?," "No, my cap is red," and "How many pigs do you have?" I actually broke out laughing twice, so in two days of repeating some pretty ridiculous stuff, I think I did a good job. Either this semester or next, when the students take the official English tests, they will be hearing my voice from grades 3-6. It was quite the experience!!
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